A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter A

Antique vocabulary

Diction
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The deliberate inclusion of archaic or outdated words in poetry to create historical texture, elevate tone, or evoke a distant era; it can signal tradition, nostalgia, or a conscious departure from contemporary speech.

Detailed Definition
Antique vocabulary employs archaic words, obsolete terms, or deliberately old-fashioned diction to create period atmosphere, suggest historical distance, or evoke earlier literary traditions. Poets use antique vocabulary to achieve various effects: authenticating historical settings, creating formal elevation, referencing specific literary periods, or ironically commenting on contemporary language through contrast with older forms. The technique requires balance between atmosphere and comprehensibility, as excessive archaism can obscure meaning while modest use evokes desired temporal or stylistic associations.
Example
Example in poetry:
Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” uses “whilom” and “eke” for archaic flavor; Milton’s “Paradise Lost” employs “thee,” “thou,” and “hath” for biblical gravity; Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” revives medieval diction (“Sir Modred, thou art false”); antique vocabulary signals historical distance or elevated tone; modern poets like Seamus Heaney use Old English terms (“thole”) in “North” for cultural resonance; this diction can evoke tradition, solemnity, or irony.
Additional Notes
Antique vocabulary refers to the deliberate use of archaic or old-fashioned words and phrases in a modern poem; this can be used to evoke a sense of the past, add formality, or create a specific ironic tone.
Also Known As
Old-fashioned vocabulary Obsolete diction Antique expression Archaic words Archaism
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